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The insanity defense in Massachusetts: See the cases

In an insanity defense, the defense argues the person did not appreciate the nature or quality or wrongfulness of the acts.

In Massachusetts, a person found not guilty by reasons of insanity is sent to a mental hospital. Their mental health is then reviewed after 6 months and then each year.

Nationally, defendants enter “not guilty by reason of insanity” pleas in fewer than 1 percent of the cases, the American Academy of Psychiatry reported. Of that number, only a quarter were successful — even though 90 percent of the defendants had a diagnosed mental illness.

“The insanity defense is very hard to win,” said William H. Reid, past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. “The number of defendants for whom an insanity defense might work is relatively small compared with the number of overall defendants for crimes, such as murder.”

Here is a look a some Massachusetts cases where the insanity defense was used.

Jane Toppan was known as "The Angel of Death." In 1901, she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity after being charged with poisoning four members of a Catumet family. The jury committed her to "The Taunton Lunatic Asylum." She would later admit to killing as many as 35 people in the various hospitals and private nursing positions she worked in.

John Salvi killed two and wounded five others when he opened fire on Brookline women's clinics on Dec. 30, 1994. His attorneys claimed he was a paranoid schizophrenic and not competent to stand trial.

Salvi was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. He killed himself in prison on Nov. 29, 1996.

In 2009, Angela Vasquez was tried for the murder of her two children, 10-year-old Dennis Burgos, Jr., and 13-year-old Yasmine Burgos on or about July 29, 2007.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury found that the Roslindale woman killed her two children, but suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time she committed the act.

John Odgren was charged with killing 15-year-old James Alenson in the bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School on Jan. 19, 2007, by stabbing him to death.

His attorney argued he had an "organic brain disorder" and should be in the care of a doctor.

The jury deliberated for about 12 hours before rejecting the defense by Odgren’s lawyers that the teenager was legally insane. He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Albert DeSalvo was the self-confessed "Boston Strangler."

DeSalvo was never tried for the "Strangler Killings," but when he was tried on charges of sexual assault and robbery, his attorney F. Lee Bailey brought up the confession to the stranglings as part of his client's history in order to gain a "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict.

The judge rejected the motion, ruling the confessions were inadmissible.

McDermott claimed he had "traveled back in time and killed Hitler and the last 6 Nazis."

He was found guilty of seven counts of first degree murder and sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Rod Matthews was 14 when he beat classmate Shaun Ouillette to death with a baseball bat in 1986. His lawyers argued insanity saying Ritalin had fueled his psychosis.

The jury found him guilty, but of second-degree murder finding he had "diminished capacity."

In March 2005, Helen McLaughlin Kirk strangled her son, Justin, 3, inside their Carver home because, investigators said, she thought the child was the devil.

In 2007, a judge found McLaughlin not guilty by reason of insanity and had her committed to Taunton State Hospital.

Doctors from Tufts Medical Center in Boston released Lee Chiero from a psychiatric facility just three weeks before he fatally stabbed his 59-year-old mother, Nancy, in their Uxbridge home in 2007.

Chiero's defense argued he lacked criminal responsibility. He had videotaped his mother as she lay dying.

The jury concluded he was legally insane at the time of killing.

In 1993, Kenneth Seguin of Holliston was tried for the murder of his wife and children.

5-year-old Amy and 7-year-old Daniel were slashed to death.

His attorneys presented evidence that Seguin was suffering from psychosis and he had delusions to kill himself and his family so they could all go to heaven.

The jury rejected the insanity defense, but found Seguin guilty of a lesser charge of second-degree murder.

Authorities said Justin Clark admitted he killed his grandmother, Eleanor Clark, 80, on March 15, 2009, by stabbing her to death in her Weston home.

His mother, Catherine Clark, described him as dangerous and "crazy" and described "psychotic breaks" that left him spiraling into a "black place." He was charged with first-degree murder and his attorneys planned to use an insanity defense.

In December 2010, Clark entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of second degree murder.“Your honor, as I understand it, I have a psychotic disorder of thought,” Clark told the judge.

Jason Rivers was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of Westminster police officer Lawrence Jupin. Psychiatrists agreed that Rivers was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time he shot Jupin.

On Aug. 4, 2007, 6-year-old Joanna Mullin was raped and murdered by her cousin, Ryan Bois.

Bois’ attorney said he was not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, arguing that he was mentally ill at the time that Joanna was killed.

The jury rejected the defense and Bois was found guilty on 10 of 13 counts, including first-degree murder, two counts of rape and one count each of kidnapping and home invasion, in the abduction and murder of Joanna Mullin. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Veteran police officers said they had never seen anything like the murder case of Richard Rosenthal. Rosenthal, 40, at the time was a financial officer at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance.

In 1995, Rosenthal beat his wife in their Framingham back yard, sliced open her chest with a butcher knife and then ripped out her heart and lungs and impaled them on a stake.

Rosenthal confessed to murdering his wife, Laura Jane, after she criticized him for burning their dinner.

Norman S. Zalkind, his attorney, said Rosenthal had been suffering from mental illness for some time."What does a man do who has an argument with his wife? Does he cut her heart and lungs out? It's absolutely insane," Zalkind said at the time.

Assistant District Attorney Martin Murphy said Rosenthal was a calculating killer who was faking mental illness.

The jury rejected the insanity defense. Rosenthal was sentenced to life in prison.

Maria Hartogensis was killed by her husband Richard in 2005, who stabbed her with scissors and beat her with a rock. Hartogensis had spent time in several institutions in the state during the last 20 years and went off his medication in November 2004, two months before he killed his wife.

Hartogensis had been deemed mentally ill by psychiatrists for both the state and the defense.

9-year-old Garrett Martel was killed by his father, Brian, who stabbed him to death in 2004. The defense argued Martel was in the grip of a psychotic episode when he killed Garrett and wounded his other son James. At trial, Brian Martel pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Joseph Druce beat and strangled defrocked catholic priest John Geoghan in prison on August 23, 2003. Druce claimed he had been sexually abused as a child.

The attorneys for Druce said he was under the delusion that God wanted him to kill Goeghan to send a message to pedophiles around the world.

The jury rejected the defense and convicted Druce, who was already serving time for another murder, of first-degree murder.

Eunice Field's attorney claimed she had bipolar disorder and was not criminally responsible when she stabbed Lorraine Wachsman to death in 2010. The jury rejected the insanity defense and convicted Field of first degree murder.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, using the false name Clark Rockefeller, kidnapped his daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, in July 2008 after his estrangement from his wife.

Gerhartsreiter's attorneys said that Gerhartsreiter believed his daughter had communicated with him telepathically, begging him to rescue her.

Defense experts testified that they had diagnosed Gerhartsreiter with a delusional disorder.

The jury found Gerhartsreiter guilty of the charges of parental kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He is currently awaiting trial in Los Angeles for the murder of Jonathan Sohus.

Keith Luke is the man found guilty of a cold-blooded murder spree in Brockton who once showed up in court with a swastika carved into his forehead.

Luke, 26, of Brockton, had been jailed since Jan. 21, 2009, after he shot and killed two people – Selma Goncalves, 22, and Arlindo Goncalves, 72 – and wounded a third person. His attorney argued the insanity defense in his trial. The jury rejected it and found Luke guilty of first-degree murder.In 2014, he committed suicide in prison.

The defense claimed Nathaniel Fujita, of Wayland, suffered a psychotic episode when he strangled his girlfriend, Lauren Astley, and dumped her body in a marsh.

After one day of deliberations, the jury rejected the defense claim and found Fujita guilty of first-degree murder with deliberate premeditation.

Li Rong Zhang was charged with killing her 8-year-old son by lighting a hibachi-style charcoal grill inside a bedroom in their apartment then barricading the door. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bryan Johnston didn't deny killing his old friend, David Sullivan, but claimed he was insane at the time and was not criminally responsible for his actions in the death of the UMass student. The jury rejected his argument and convicted Johnston of murder.

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